Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to apparel apparatus such as spool and implement holders. More specifically, the invention relates to holders for needle or pin.
Description of Related Art
In sewing and tailoring, a garment might be fitted at preliminary and intermediate times when the assembly is not complete. Straight pins are the most common means for holding the garment in a proposed fit. Of course, pins are prone to stick anyone who encounters their sharp end, which might be anyone involved with handling or wearing the garment. There has been no reasonable solution to this problem.
A few known devices might help but are not practical. For example, safety pins can be closed to guard the point, but these are slow and clumsy to use. Interestingly, various sharps such as injection needles in medical practice are supplied with a covering shell to protect them before use, but medical personnel typically dispose of the used sharp in a special sharps disposal container, without reinserting the needle in the original shell. In this case, it appears there is an avoided danger of self-injury to the medical person if he tried to reapply the cover.
Recent U.S. Pat. No. 8,052,017 for a Pin Moor proposes using a chunk of rubber, plastic, foam, paper, neoprene, or the like with a pin to help hold together layers of a quilt during construction. The proposed soft materials offer no protection to self-injury and otherwise seem clumsy in use, like a safety pin.
It would be desirable to create a protector for sharps such as straight pins, but applicable to other types of sharps, that protects from inadvertent sticks. Similarly, it would be desirable to provide a sharps protector that offers efficient and prompt handling with features such as dual end reception, and communicates this ability to the user using one or more senses.
To achieve the foregoing and other objects and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the method and apparatus of this invention may comprise the following.